The romantic

Books that will make your heart leap even if the crosspatch on the lounger next to you doesn’t.

The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer (Faber, published on Thursday, £12.99).

In Fifties San Francisco, Pearlie, a dutiful wife, is devoted to the care of her ailing husband and disabled son. But when a stranger turns up on her doorstep, her life changes and she is forced to reconsider the version of love she had previously accepted. Greer’s beautifully written romance is as much a portrait of an era as a study of the lengths to which people will go to feed a hungry heart.

Set on the Italian Riviera in the Eighties, this passionate love story won massive praise on publication in America. It follows the sudden, obsessive desire that blooms between 17?year-old Elio and Oliver, his father’s research assistant. Aciman’s sensuous prose will strike a chord with readers of all persuasions who remember the painful intensity of teenage love – which will means most of us.

Distance By Ewan Morrison (Cape, published Thursday, £12.99).

After his shocking last novel, Swung, Morrison tones it down with this tale of long-distance love. Meg and Tom meet in New York and enjoy a holiday romance. But Meg lives in Edinburgh, and Tom is married. As their affection deepens via email, they agree that Meg should go to America. But the tension of waiting threatens to boil over…

Also recommended: Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt (Sceptre, £16.99); We Are Now Beginning our Descent by James Meek (Canongate, £16.99).

The thrill-seeker

If you secretly yearn for bloodstained beaches and exotic assassins, look no further than this crop of novels, guaranteed to keep the adrenalin flowing.

A vividly observed Bangkok is the setting for this first in a series about Vincent “Vinnie” Calvino, a disbarred American lawyer-turned-Thai private eye. Drug cartels, super-rich celebrities and a Shakespeare-quoting chief of police. Moore is already a hit in America.

Red Mandarin Dress by Qiu Xiaolong (Sceptre, £7.99).

“Love, sex and murder in Shanghai” is the tag-line for this stylish thriller, and it doesn’t disappoint. Xiaolong’s astute rendering of the many contradictions of contemporary Chinese life centres on the brilliant Inspector Chen Cao. In this outing, he finds himself on the trail of a terrifying serial killer. But will he unravel the clues in time to stop another girl being murdered? A fine introduction to a series that might well get you hooked.

Dead Lovely by Helen Fitzgerald (Faber, £10.99). For quality chick-lit with a murderous twist, look no further than Fitzgerald’s inimical brand of thinking woman’s noir. Best friends Krissie and Sarah have very different attitudes to love and marriage – but whereas one is pregnant after a casual fling in Tenerife, the other is unable to conceive. Tensions reach their climax on a trip to the Scottish Highlands, where sexual insecurity and murderous impulses create the holiday from hell.

Also recommended: Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks (Penguin, £18.99); Empires of the Sea by Roger Crowley (Faber, £20).

The adventurer

These action-packed reads for the intrepid holidaymaker are also good for those who are travelling no further than the armchair or garden.

The Dolphin People by Torsten Krol (Atlantic, published August 1, £12.99).

Could this be the new Life of Pi? The Dolphin People is a madcap South American adventure story in the tradition of Robinson Crusoe, by the cult author Torsten Krol. A German widow and her two sons set sail for a new life in Venezuela, but become stranded with the stone-age Yayomi people, who fête them as reincarnated dolphin-gods. Unputdownable.

China Road by Rob Gifford (Bloomsbury, £8.99).

Armchair travel doesn’t come much funnier, or more enlightening, than this. The 3,000-mile Route 312, which runs from Shanghai to Kazakhstan, provides the backdrop to Gifford’s rollicking Chinese road-trip. Undertaking to travel the length of this great highway, the irrepressible Gifford encounters more wonderful people and places than he ever imagined, and provides rare reportage into life in a land defined by rapid economic growth.

Tribe: Adventures in a Changing World by Bruce Parry (Penguin, £7.99).

However adventurous you think you are, you’d be hard pushed to match the inexhaustible Parry. If he’s not having hallucinogens blown up his nose in a rainforest, he’s undergoing dangerous initiation rites. In thoughtful prose, he leads us on a whistle-stop tour of the earth’s remotest societies – but also confronts difficult issues.

Also recommended: Real Men Eat Puffer Fish (and 93 Other Dangerous Things to Consider) by Robert Tigger (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £9.99); Amazing Tales for Making Men out of Boys by Neil Oliver (Michael Joseph, £17.99).

The culture-vulture

If you like the idea of matching your mind-broadening travel with some mind-expanding reading the following should fit the bill.

Persepolis I & II by Marjane Satrapi (Jonathan Cape, £6.99).

Those who loved the recent film version of Satrapi’s genre-busting memoir will find themselves even more seduced by the book. This wonderfully stylish autobiography tells, in pictures, the story of a clever young girl growing up during the Iran-Iraq war of the Eighties. Detailing life in Iran after the revolution, then in exile in Austria, Persepolis is a moving testament to the power of creativity over other people’s politics.

The Bridge: A Journey Between Orient and Occident by Geert Mak (Harvill Secker, £10).

This gem of a history book is slim enough to squeeze into the smallest piece of carry-on luggage but contains a wealth of stories about Istanbul’s famous Galata bridge, which connects the old city with the more Westernised northern quarters. Weaving the long history of the bridge itself with the biographies of those who populate it today, the sensitive Mak shines a light on contemporary Turkey and its changing relationship with the rest of Europe.

Venice is a Fish: A Cultural Guide by Tiziano Scarpa (Serpent’s Tail, £8.99).

A radically different vade mecum by one of Venice’s most cutting-edge contemporary writers. Scarpa warns the discerning tourist to wear thin-soled shoes. He tells you to throw away your map. He talks about food, insects, mud and, of course, art. He even shows you where lovers go for privacy in this most public city. And though he doesn’t name the best bars and restaurants, he tells you the precise questions to ask if you want to find them.

The home-lover

Do you get half way through your holiday and start dreaming of rainy streets and Waitrose? Then pack one of these quintessentially English offerings.

Shire Hell by Rachel Johnson (Penguin, £6.99).

Fans of the London mayor’s sister’s Notting Hell will have been looking forward to this one. This time, Johnson turns her satirical sights on English country life, where her lovable heroine Mimi – who has moved into darkest bucolia to save her marriage – finds it every bit as yummy mummy-ridden as London. Welcome to the perils of looking good in jodhpurs, raising rare-breed chickens and hosting just the right sort of weekend parties.

The Good Plain Cook by Bethan Rogers (Serpent’s Tail, published on Thursday, £10.99).

In Thirties Sussex, young Kitty Allen answers an advertisement for a “good plain cook”. In fact, she can barely boil an egg, but her lack of culinary skill pales into insignificance compared with the truths about life, love and politics that she will learn in the household of Ellen Steinberg, her eccentric new boss. For the Steinbergs are rich bohemians who sunbathe naked and call their staff by their first names. And over one long summer they open Kitty’s eyes to a new version of English life that is thoroughly, shockingly Modern.

London and the South East by David Szalay (Cape, £12.99).

Szalay’s brilliant debut novel gets under the skin of commuter-belt Britain, following in excruciating detail the endless cycle of office-stress and alcohol-based recuperation in the life of a middle-ranking sales exec in an anonymous London company. Hangovers, bad coffee and an ever dwindling sex life with a wife he never sees combine to make our mortgage-enslaved hero wonder if it’s all worth it.

Also recommended: God’s Own Country by Ross Raisin (Viking, £14.99); The Morville Hours: The Story of a Garden (Bloomsbury, £17.99).

The young reader

For peace on rainy days, pack some of 2008’s best novels for younger readers.

Mwah-Mwah by Chloë Rayban (Bloomsbury, £6.99).

When Hannah’s mother packs her off to Paris to stay with a family friend for the holidays, Hannah is not best pleased. Especially as this friend has an impossibly glamorous daughter about Hannah’s age, who seems anything but friendly. When the girls encounter the dashing Michel, their rivalry starts in earnest, resulting in a fun and gossipy coming-of-age adventure that will delight any young teenager.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney (Puffin, £4.99).

With his credibility constantly overshadowed by an embarrassing mum and a distinct lack of facial hair, dweeby Greg Heffley wonders whether he will ever be accepted by the cool kids. His hilarious journal and silly cartoons detail a succession of increasingly disastrous scrapes, making the trials and tribulations of Greg and best mate Rowley a delight from beginning to end. What started as an online phenomenon in America has fast become one of the children’s publishing sensations of the decade.

Foul Play by Tom Palmer (Puffin, £5.99).

The first in Puffin’s new “Football Detective” series combines footie with a heavy dose of mystery-solving. Young Danny is a mad City fan, but when he sees his hero Sam Roberts taken off blindfolded in the dead of night, he knows he must act fast to solve the crime. Credited with turning book-phobic boys into page-turning maniacs.Also recommended: Here Lies Arthur by Philip Reeve (Scholastic, £6.99); What I Was by Meg Rosoff (Penguin, £6.99).

The traditionalist

For some, holidays mean a chance to catch up on the classics. Why not aim for something a little lighter with one of these stylish new holiday-friendly reprints?

Montalbán – recently voted one of the top 50 crime writers of all time – writes fantastically evocative Catalonian thrillers. Carvalho, an ex-cop who loves fine food as much as he hates an unsolved crime, works as a gumshoe in Barcelona. In this classic story, he is faced with a mysteriously tattooed corpse, and his search for the killer takes him through a Spanish underworld of violence, drugs and prostitution.

The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby (Persephone, £12).

First published in 1924, this fascinating, pre-feminist novel shows what life was really like for our grandmothers’ generation. Muriel lives in a dull Yorkshire town and is under pressure from her mother to make a good marriage. But she yearns for something more. As she waits for the inevitable husband to arrive, she casts a wry look at the urban and rural social landscapes of her time.

Translated into English for the first time since its 1781 publication, this glorious satire purports to be the letters home of two Persian travellers in Paris. Usbek and Rica’s reports on the clothes, cafés and conventions of the French capital are interwoven with news from home (where all is not well in the family harem) and Usbek’s digressions into comparative theology.

The trendsetter

Super-young, super-cool and fast becoming known as one of the hottest literary talents of multicultural Europe, Guène takes us on a tour of the tough suburbs of Paris and Algeria, where having the wrong-colour passport sentences you to a half-life. Our heroine, 24-year-old Ahlème, is an unforgettable narrator, and this is much more than mere social commentary – it’s a funny, intimate and timely book by one of the stars of tomorrow.

Granta 101 edited Jason Cowley (Granta, £10.99).

With a new editor, Britain’s coolest compendium of words and pictures is back to being – in the words of one critic – “more hip, less replacement”. This edition features incisive investigative journalism on life in the Paris banlieues and mean streets of modern China, as well as writing by Tim Lott and Lavinia Greenlaw. With Gautier Deblonde’s photography, there is some-thing for every holiday mood.

Homesick by Eshkol Nevo (Chatto & Windus, £11.99).

A massive best-seller in the author’s native Israel, this brave and moving novel follows the daily lives of a disparate group of people – Jews and Arabs – all seeking a sense of home in their troubled country. Nevo has said that writing in the voice of a Palestinian was the hardest thing he’s ever done. Judge for yourself whether he’s pulled it off, but prepare to be engrossed.

Also recommended: We- Think by Charles Leadbeater (Profile, £12.99); Microtrends: Surprising Tales of the Way We Live Today by Mark J Penn and E Kinnery Zalesne (Penguin, £9.99).

The Reveller

If your packing consists only of skimpy swimwear, then try these spicy new releases.

Tan Lines by JJ Salem (Pan, £6.99).

Salem’s high-octane romp is set among the well-heeled hedonists of the Hamptons and describes one heady summer in the lives of three women who seem, on the face of it, to be living the dream. Liza, Kellyanne and Billie suspect that there’s more to life than sex, cocktails and designer frocks, but they’re not done experimenting yet. Escapism with a feminist edge.

Gigolo (Hodder, £6.99).

This anonymous memoir lifts the lid on the exotic lifestyle of the male bimbo. He’s young, he’s handsome and he’s happy to follow his wealthy mistresses around the world’s, providing all manner of saucy services. This racy read gives an unashamedly trashy insight into the world of male arm candy.

Dandy in the Underworld by Sebastian Horsley (Sceptre, £8.99).

A world-class lover of art, sex, clothes and intoxicants, Sebastian Horsley’s memoir is as shamelessly excessive as it is beautifully written. And his evocation of a life devoted to pleasure is unexpectedly moving as well as extreme. Although not for the faint-hearted, Dandy in the Underworld is the ultimate libertine’s guide and a rare literary treat to boot.

Also recommended: Bright Young People: The Rise and Fall of a Generation: 1918–1940 by D J Taylor (Chatto & Windus, £20) and The Sixties Unplugged by Gerard DeGroot (Macmillan, £20).

The quick reader

If you can’t devour the odd unchallenging paperback on holiday, when can you?

This Charming Man by Marian Keyes (Michael Joseph, £17.99).

When Paddy de Courcy – the “John F Kennedy Jr of Dublin” – announces he is getting married, it sparks different reactions in four women whose lives have been shaped by the charismatic lawyer. Includes that holiday essential: an upbeat ending.

Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella (Bantam Press, £17.99).

A woman with a dreary life gets a bang on the head and wakes up three years later living the dream and married to a fabulous man. But how did it happen?

The Front by Patricia Cornwall (Little, Brown, £12.99).

Cornwall leaves Kay Scarpetta, heroine of most of her crime novels, to give a second outing to Win Garano and his nemesis, no-nonsense, corner-cutting District Attorney Monique Lamont. Cornwall’s recent books lack the conviction of classics like Cruel and Unusual, but even when she’s not hitting the heights, she’s still hard to put down.